Skip to main content
Main

Meat Pie

A layered pie with cold meat, onion, potatoes, gravy, and pastry baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Meat Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Assemble the pie

  1. Layer thin slices of cold meat, grated onion, salt, and pepper in a baking dish.

  2. Add a layer of thin-sliced potatoes, using cold cooked potatoes if desired.

  3. Continue layering until the dish is full.

  4. Pour cold gravy, tomato sauce, or soup stock over the layers.

  5. Cover the top with rolled pastry.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 30 minutes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Thin slices of cold meat
Forms the main filling and gives the pie its savoury flavour.
Thin-sliced potatoes
Add bulk and starch that soften during baking and help make the filling hold together.
Cold gravy, tomato sauce, or soup stock
Supplies liquid that moistens the layers as they cook.
Pastry
Encloses the filling and forms a crust that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Pouring in the cold liquid. Cold gravy, sauce, or stock should be poured over the layers before the pastry goes on, so the filling is moist and the liquid can heat through and thicken during baking rather than leaving the pie dry or watery at the bottom.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, pepper, potato, tomato):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Okrafits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, potato, tomato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More meat pie recipes

Mince Filling 11Mince 10Cold 7French 7Crust 5Pastry 5 See all 92 →

You might also like

Meatless Tomato SoupMeatless Tomato Soup23 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipes